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Started By
Message
Looking for a good value Video Card
Posted on 7/30/13 at 4:52 pm
Posted on 7/30/13 at 4:52 pm
OK after much deliberation with Puff, I've decided to bring my case to the almighty GB.
Currently, I have a HTPC that has the following:
Chipset: AMD A10-5800K Trinity 3.8GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU
Mobo: ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M
Memory: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0
Power Supply: Corsair CX600
Now here's the situation, I don't get a lot of time to game as the wife isn't the biggest fan of video games. She doesn't get it, and never has; so it goes without saying that she doesn't get spending a bunch of money for a GPU. However, I would like to do some decent gaming on this rig without breaking the bank. Puff suggested a 660ti Myst edition, but honestly I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to all the different GPU options.
Bottom line: I need a quality/affordable GPU for less than $200 (although the cheaper the better) that will let me run games at a fairly high setting for the foreseeable future. I'm not looking to game at 1440 or anything. But I don't want to buy something that's immediately going to be obsolete.
Any suggestion would be appreciated
TIA
Currently, I have a HTPC that has the following:
Chipset: AMD A10-5800K Trinity 3.8GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket FM2 100W Quad-Core Desktop APU
Mobo: ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M
Memory: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0
Power Supply: Corsair CX600
Now here's the situation, I don't get a lot of time to game as the wife isn't the biggest fan of video games. She doesn't get it, and never has; so it goes without saying that she doesn't get spending a bunch of money for a GPU. However, I would like to do some decent gaming on this rig without breaking the bank. Puff suggested a 660ti Myst edition, but honestly I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to all the different GPU options.
Bottom line: I need a quality/affordable GPU for less than $200 (although the cheaper the better) that will let me run games at a fairly high setting for the foreseeable future. I'm not looking to game at 1440 or anything. But I don't want to buy something that's immediately going to be obsolete.
Any suggestion would be appreciated
TIA
3
Posted on 7/30/13 at 4:57 pm to Early Cuyler
I'm not up to date with my vid card specs/prices, but 5-6 months ago I bought a 7850 to upgrade my current PC
LINK
Slightly under $200
I'm sure others here will be of more help, but I love this card, run everything on ultra for my games (such as BF3) with ZERO issues.
ETA: What kind of games are you looking to be able to play?
LINK
Slightly under $200
I'm sure others here will be of more help, but I love this card, run everything on ultra for my games (such as BF3) with ZERO issues.
ETA: What kind of games are you looking to be able to play?
This post was edited on 7/30/13 at 4:58 pm
Posted on 7/30/13 at 5:15 pm to Early Cuyler
$166 after rebate and promo code
and a little better.
$204 after rebate and promo
Those are good prices for both right now and the best 2 cards for about $200 and below $200
and a little better.
$204 after rebate and promo
Those are good prices for both right now and the best 2 cards for about $200 and below $200
This post was edited on 7/30/13 at 5:16 pm
Posted on 7/30/13 at 5:18 pm to Early Cuyler
quote:
Puff suggested a 660ti Myst edition, but honestly I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to all the different GPU options.
I am not sure what I would do with your current set up since you are using an APU. The cheapest bet might be to crossfire that APU with a GPU. I think the biggest card you can crossfire it with is a 6770.
What speed is your ram? To get the most out of an APU it should be 1866MHz or higher.
Posted on 7/30/13 at 5:20 pm to Mr Gardoki
both of you ignoring the APU. Too powerful of a GPU ignores the APU all together then it's pretty pointless to even have and I have read of people having technical problems when doing so.
Posted on 7/30/13 at 5:44 pm to stout
quote:
To get the most out of an APU it should be 1866MHz or higher.
I believe it is set to 1866Mhz
Posted on 7/30/13 at 7:10 pm to stout
I thought the difficulties came when cross firing with an apu?
Posted on 7/30/13 at 7:12 pm to Mr Gardoki
Not with the latest drivers and it you ignore the APU then it's pointless to have as it's not a strong stand alone gaming CPU.
Posted on 7/30/13 at 11:10 pm to stout
quote:
Not with the latest drivers and it you ignore the APU then it's pointless to have as it's not a strong stand alone gaming CPU.
when i put the build together I designed it along an upgrade path. So when he said he wanted a HTPC capable of light gaming I went APU. I figured he would eventually want a discreet gpu (let's face it, everyone wants to upgrade), and at the time of building a lot of people said not to do the cfx as the price of adding an aging compatible gpu would not justify the performance. therefore, when he came to me looking for more performance I thought he should get a solid enough GPU that could also be used in a stand-alone gaming rig that I believe he plans to build in the next year or so. Therefore a 660ti or 7870 xt were my suggestions for his price point as they still run nearly everything at 60 frames on 1080p. By doing this, his 200 dollars now would last him significantly longer than getting a $100 gpu that wouldn't be supported down the road when he builds a gaming pc.
I was thinking 7870 or 660ti would slot in nicely with an 8320 or something similar when the time comes.
If I understand early correctly, he wants to know what GPU will fit this upgrade path best. Knowing this, am I right to advise him to shoot for the $200 price range?
Posted on 7/31/13 at 2:37 am to puffulufogous
I've heard the 5800k overclocks pretty well. With doing that then throwing a 7870 or a 660 would at least lower the bottleneck potential( if there even is one to begin with). Those APUs have strong single core performance since they're based off the same architecture that the phenoms had.
Posted on 7/31/13 at 8:41 am to brucevilanch
quote:
I've heard the 5800k overclocks pretty well.
yeah but I am not so sure how much headroom we are going to have. Firstly, the system is pretty loud mainly because of a 92mm fan in the back of the case but also from a H60 with stock fans in pushpull. I really don't see the processor performance as a major bottleneck at this point.
Posted on 7/31/13 at 8:45 am to puffulufogous
quote:
I really don't see the processor performance as a major bottleneck at this point.
So we're back to the original question of which GPU to pair with it? I would say the 7870 myst if it's in the budget. When I was researching getting one the only complaint the powercolor version had was that it was loud.
If the 7870myst is too much then the 7870ghz will be completely serviceable and may be quieter.
This post was edited on 7/31/13 at 8:52 am
Posted on 7/31/13 at 10:38 am to puffulufogous
quote:
yeah but I am not so sure how much headroom we are going to have. Firstly, the system is pretty loud mainly because of a 92mm fan in the back of the case but also from a H60 with stock fans in pushpull. I really don't see the processor performance as a major bottleneck at this point.
I believe that it is an H80 IIRC, however, i would tend to agree.
quote:
So we're back to the original question of which GPU to pair with it?
I guess, but i'd be curious what the pros/cons of bypassing the APU altogether are? I understand that if I XF it with a relatively under powered GPU, then I'm doing myself a disservice as that GPU will not be transferable to another build as it wouldn't be sufficient.
This post was edited on 7/31/13 at 10:40 am
Posted on 7/31/13 at 3:38 pm to Early Cuyler
well the pro of cfx with the apu is that you could use a very inexpensive gpu and get pretty decent performance, but the con would be that the discreet gpu would be pretty useless for the gaming PC you may build in the future. I feel like the resale of a cfxable gpu would be very poor in a year or two, whereas if you spent 200 now you could bring that GPU over to your new gaming pc in the future and still get decent performance at 1080. No guarantee that the 7870 ghz or xt or 660ti will still be performing really well in a year with the next consoles coming out, but I think you would still get pretty solid performance. Then you could just leave the HTPC as is in the living room.
Am I making sense to anyone else?
Am I making sense to anyone else?
Posted on 7/31/13 at 7:16 pm to puffulufogous
You asked for my input, so I'll just paste what I responded to you on steam while you were offline, with a little bit added:
I know very little about the APUs and the reviews on pairing them with compatible GPUs are mixed. I've only built one APU system, and it was a super low-end build for my in-laws. I'm hesitant to give an opinion on crossfiring it having no personal experience with what could ultimately be a nightmare.
If you just go with a faster non-compatible GPU the CPU will likely bottleneck it. I'd just try to find some data on framerates in recent games using that APU paired with various GPUs, crossfired or not. I'm sure someone has fricked around with similar setups before.
I know very little about the APUs and the reviews on pairing them with compatible GPUs are mixed. I've only built one APU system, and it was a super low-end build for my in-laws. I'm hesitant to give an opinion on crossfiring it having no personal experience with what could ultimately be a nightmare.
If you just go with a faster non-compatible GPU the CPU will likely bottleneck it. I'd just try to find some data on framerates in recent games using that APU paired with various GPUs, crossfired or not. I'm sure someone has fricked around with similar setups before.
This post was edited on 7/31/13 at 7:17 pm
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